236
THROUGH INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY
IN COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Puji Astuti
(puji.astuti.ssu@mail.unnes.ac.id)
Universitas Negeri Semarang
Kampus Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia
Jayne C. Lammers
(jlammers@warner.rochester.edu)Warner School of Education, University of Rochester 500 Joseph C. Wilson Blvd, Rochester, New York, USA
Abstract: This article attempts to add to the literature supporting Communica-tive Language Teaching (CLT) by proposing the use of CooperaCommunica-tive Learning (CL), specifically focusing on the enactment of a key principle of CL, i.e., indi-vidual accountability. It illustrates how to train students on CL and its indiindi-vidual accountability work and demonstrates how activities involved in individual countability, i.e., individual students’ performance(s) and peer interaction, can ac-commodate the teaching of the four language skills and components. We argue that these activities promote learners’ use of and meaning making in English and thus recommend teachers, especially those new to CL, follow the procedure of CL techniques exactly as described so that language learning in their classrooms goes in the direction of attaining improved communicative competence—the goal of CLT.
Keywords: EFL, communicative language teaching, cooperative learning, indi-vidual accountability
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v28i2/236-259
(CLT) – which emphasizes student engagement in language learning – has been long advocated for as an effective means of language instruction (see e.g., Richards, 2002) and that this method is written into policy documents guiding English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education, literature shows that the an-swer to the last question, in many cases, is yes.
In Indonesian EFL instruction, for example; despite the fact that CLT has been prescribed to teachers since the 1980s (Lie, 2007), it remains only a slo-gan, as evidenced by the prevalence of teacher-centered instruction in formal English classes. Indonesian students largely learn English by doing repetition and substitution drills (Alwasilah, 2012; Lie, 2007; Mattarima & Hamdan, 2011; Musthafa, 2009). A number of reports detail the following challenges faced by Indonesian EFL teachers in implementing CLT: the inconsistencies found in the mandated curriculum, which dictates teaching the four language skills (i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and language components (e.g., grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary) but assesses English largely based on reading skills (Intansari, 2010); the students’ insufficient amount of expo-sure to real-life English use (Musthafa, 2001); the lack of support for teachers (Musthafa, 2001); and teachers’ low level of English proficiency and mastery of CLT teaching methodology (Alwasilah, 2012, 2013; Madya, 2007). Throughout this article, we highlight the importance of addressing the last chal-lenge—EFL teachers’ mastery of CLT methods— by building a case for a par-ticular teaching method to make EFL instruction more CLT-oriented.
The goal of CLT is to get students to use the target language to communi-cate, build learners’ communicative competence, or “the ability of language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning” (Savignon, 1991, p. 264). Hence, the use of the target language and student-student interaction are at the heart of CLT, as delineated by Richards (2002) in his summary of CLT principles. These principles include: a) learners learn a language by using it to communicate, b) authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities, and c) communication involves the integration of dif-ferent language skills (p. 6). Classroom activities using CLT, as Larsen-Freeman (2012) highlights, usually have the characteristics of students working on information gaps. She goes on to describe:
under-stood. After considering this feedback, the speaker can revise the form of the message if such revision is necessary. In essence, then, students learn how to communicate by communicating. (p. 34)
Larsen-Freeman (2012)’s description of an information gap activity suggests that CLT favors student-student interaction (see also Larsen-Freeman, 1986) in which there are exchanges of information as well as feedback giving and re-ceiving activities; together with their peers, students make meaning in the tar-get language.
In addition to the information gaps activity described above, other com-municative activities in which students have opportunities to use the target lan-guage a great deal include: games and role playing (Li, 1998). In Holliday’s (1994) view, however, these activities do not seem to reflect the CLT class-room. Holliday stresses that when learning in CLT, rather than communicating with each other, students collaborate and help each other to solve language problems. In other words, Holliday underlines the importance of students learn-ing about how language works in discourse, which amounts to more than lan-guage practice.
To put CLT into practice, in a way that accommodates both stances, i.e., communication functions-oriented—meaningful and authentic language use (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, 2012; Richards, 2002) and discourse-oriented— making sense of the target language (Holliday, 1994), teachers can use cooper-ative learning (CL). CL consists of group learning activities in which individu-al students’ contribution to the learning is reindividu-alized through their performance or presentation, which is beneficial not only for their own learning but also for their peers’ learning and the group’s goals (Astuti & Lammers, 2017).
In addition to the above limitations, we should keep in mind that students’ use of first language during their interaction with their peers in CL groups might be inevitable. For example, in the first author (2016)’s study, the use of Indonesian and Javanese languages—either language was the first language of the student participants—was prevalent during students’ peer interaction. One of the students explained that the reason for using their first language was to make their meanings and messages more clear.
The study also showed that the student participants tended to use their first language more during conventional group work than in CL group work. In the latter, they were required to communicate in English (i.e., through peer interac-tion and individual accountability performances) with other group members and to the whole class to share what they had learned. Such requirement (i.e., the use of English for communication) might be present in most EFL class-rooms given the goals of CLT. However, the structure of interaction facilitated by CL—with both learning materials and peers—may be absent when students are working in conventional group work or in commonly introduced learning activities, such as free conversation. Finally, the issue of first language use in students’ interaction in their CL groups may not inhibit second language learn-ing, as studies show the advantages of using the first language in EFL learning (e.g., Kagan & McGroarty, 1993; McGroarty, 1989).
Notwithstanding its limitations and the issue of learners’ use of their first language during student-student interaction, CL has been shown to provide benefits to EFL learners. For example, through its required individual students’ presentations or performances (or individual accountability) and structured peer interaction, CL maximized opportunities for learners to use the target language, which benefitted them in attaining improved communicative competence (As-tuti, 2016). Other research literature has shown that using CL increased English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ achievement in the four language skills and promoted EFL learners’ mastery of language components (e.g., Alghamdi, 2014; Almuslimi, 2016; Bejarano, 1987; Ghaith, 2003; Liang, 2002; Sachs, Candlin, & Rose, 2003, Wei & Tang, 2015). Thus, we believe that CL works in harmony with the aims of CLT.
works (Chen, 2011), and 4) the need to connect the how (of CL techniques) to accommodate the what (teaching content) (Bejarano, 1987). The last two fac-tors will be addressed in this article.
CL promotes individual students’ accountability in their learning and in-teraction with peers. Literature suggests that this benefit of CL is possible due to the occurrences of its principles—defining elements of CL—which include positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation, and simultaneous interaction (see e.g., Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Kagan, 1989; Ol-sen & Kagan, 1992; Slavin, 1995). Johnson and Johnson (1999) define the first two principles as the following: Positive interdependence occurs when individ-ual students’ success (e.g., mastering the assigned material) depends on their peers’ success. Individual accountability happens when individual students learn on their own and then interact with their peers to perform higher as indi-viduals. Kagan and Kagan (2009) offer the following definitions of equal par-ticipation and simultaneous interaction, respectively: “Parpar-ticipation is not vol-untary; everyone must participate about equally” and “…not only are students participating about equally, they are participating frequently; many students participate at once” (p. 5.11).
When CL’s defining elements or principles are enacted, cooperation among students takes place, and effective implementation will likely be achieved (see Chen, 2011; Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Olsen & Kagan, 1992; Slavin, 1999). Literature also suggests that CL’s principle of individual ac-countability differentiates it from conventional group work and, when enacted, learners gain numerous benefits (Bruffee, 1995; Panitz, 1999). Nevertheless, little research has been conducted to investigate how CL principles— particularly individual accountability—enhance learning in EFL learning set-tings. Therefore, based on the first author’s qualitative case study that focused on individual accountability in CL (Astuti, 2016), this article proposes the use of CL, specifically the enactment of its individual accountability principle to make EFL instruction more CLT-oriented.
how ensuring students perform individual accountability can help teachers to train their students on how CL works. Additionally, we show how knowing in-dividual accountability activities in CL techniques can help teachers to connect the how (of CL) to the what (teaching content) of language learning. Finally, we offer teachers some points to consider when using CL techniques to pro-mote their students’ EFL learning.
INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN CL
Individual accountability in CL requires presentation or performance by individual students in front of their CL peers, making their performance public, to complete a task in their EFL learning (Astuti & Lammers, 2017). For exam-ple, when students learn through a CL technique named RoundRobin (Kagan & Kagan, 2009), described in greater detail later in this article, they perform their individual accountability when they state a response or solution to a question or problem posed by the teacher. When this presentation or performance is missed or skipped, not only do students lose an opportunity to use the target language, there might also be students who do not have their answers ready. If this hap-pens, the benefit of CL for promoting EFL learners’ communicative compe-tence may not be reaped.
Through a qualitative case study, Astuti (2016) explored the roles of indi-vidual accountability—a key principle of and one of the activities in CL— in enhancing EFL learning in Indonesian secondary schools. Constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) was employed to guide data collection— through participant observations, in-depth interview, and document analysis— and data analysis. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 2000; Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999; Leont’ev, 1978; Yamagata-Lynch, 2003, 2007, 2010) and Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996) were utilized as theoretical frameworks to analyze the data. CHAT was employed because an implementation of CL symbolizes an activity system and Interaction Hypothe-sis was used to look at how CL, particularly its activities of individual account-ability, enhances EFL learning.
place. Furthermore, the study identified a number of important roles that indi-vidual accountability had for the EFL learners, including, among others: 1) al-lowed them to give and receive vocabulary help, 2) gave them access to their peers’ pronunciation, and 3) allowed them to gain confidence to speak in Eng-lish. To elaborate on the first role, through peer interaction that usually took place between two performances of individual accountability (initial and higher levels), the EFL learners gave and received vocabulary help from their peers. This vocabulary help contributed to their performance of higher level(s) of in-dividual accountability, such as in other groups and to the whole class. In these later performances, EFL learners communicated or elaborated on what they learned from peers using English vocabulary relevant to the given tasks.
With regard to access to pronunciation, because of the availability of per-formances of individual accountability in their classroom, all EFL learners gained access to their peers’ pronunciation. For example, one learner in the study noticed English words that his peers inaccurately pronounced in their in-dividual accountability performance, and this served as a reminder for him not to repeat the same mistake in his own performance of individual accountability. Moreover, because of the nature of individual accountability in CL, i.e., re-quired performances and the use of English in these performances, the EFL learners gained confidence to speak in the target language.
The following section will present illustrations of how to train students on CL techniques, specifically by familiarizing them with the activities of individ-ual accountability. In our illustrations, we unpack each of the chosen CL tech-niques and discuss their imbedded activities of individual accountability–an endeavor that we believe adds to the knowledge base about CL in a unique way. At the end of our illustrations, we present our recommendation for how to introduce students to more complex CL techniques, i.e., ones that have more than one level of individual accountability. Altogether, the following section describes four CL techniques, which we chose because they share the same characteristic, i.e., having the level of individual accountability in home groups, for reasons discussed in more detail below.
TRAINING STUDENTS ON HOW CL WORKS
works, including activities of individual accountability. There are four levels of individual accountability in CL, hence, students need to know about and expe-rience performing in each of the levels. Moreover, as identified by the first au-thor’s study, most CL techniques set peer interaction to take place between two levels of individual accountability. Thus, students also need to know what is expected of them during this interaction, such as becoming the audience of their peers’ performance of individual accountability, the audience of their peers’ practice for the next performance, and the feedback provider (e.g., providing help on vocabulary). Teachers can start with simpler CL techniques that have one level of individual accountability, such as Fan-N-Pick and RoundRobin (Kagan & Kagan, 2009). We focus on these two here because they have the level of individual accountability in home groups. If missed, this particular level of individual accountability, and the peer interactions such ac-countability encourages, might create an unfavorable situation in the imple-mentation of CL in which students may not present their share of the work or may perform without adequate preparation (Astuti, 2016).
In Fan-N-Pick, each group receives a set of question cards. Students and their group members play a card game to respond to questions, and roles rotate with each new question. The complete procedure of this CL technique com-prises the following steps: 1) student #1 holds question cards in a fan and says, “Pick a card, any card!” 2) student #2 picks a card, reads the question aloud, and allows five seconds of think time, 3) student #3 answers the question, 4) student #4 responds to the answer, and 5) students switch roles. Fan-N-Pick can also be played in pairs: 1) student #1 fans, 2) student #2 picks and reads the question card, 3) student #1 answers, and 4) student #2 tutors or praises, 5) stu-dents switch roles (Kagan & Kagan, 2009, p. 6.25). Hence, depending on how a teacher groups the students, in Fan-N-Pick, students’ individual accountabil-ity performance is carried out either in front of their home group members or in front of their partner. Since there is only one level of individual accountability in Fan-N-Pick, peer interaction may only occur in the response phase (step 4 in each variation of the technique).
one level of individual accountability, as in Fan-N-Pick, peer interaction may not be needed in RoundRobin.
When students already know what to expect from individual accountabil-ity– that performance is required and to be carried out in the target language of English– teachers can then introduce them to CL techniques that have more than one level of individual accountability. The procedures of these techniques usually include peer interaction that follows an initial performance. This peer interaction can help students to prepare for the next level of individual account-ability. Let’s examine two examples of these techniques, Three Step Interview and Numbered Heads Together. As with our choice of the previous CL tech-niques, we focus on Three Step Interview and Numbered Heads Together for our next illustration because they also have the level of individual accountabil-ity in home groups that facilitates crucial peer interaction and preparation.
In Three Step Interview, students interview their partner and then each share with their group members what they learned. The steps in this CL tech-nique include: 1) teacher provides the interview topic, states the duration of the interview, and provides think time, 2) in pairs, student A interviews student B, 3) pairs switch roles: student B interviews student A, and 4) teacher asks stu-dents to do RoundRobin (Kagan & Kagan, 2009, p. 6.38). As previously dis-cussed, in RoundRobin students form groups of four and each student, in turn, shares with their group members what he or she just learned. When learning through Three Step Interview, students perform two levels of individual countability – in pairs and in groups. After the initial level of individual ac-countability in pairs, they interact with their partner to prepare for their indi-vidual accountability in groups.
dis-cuss their group’s answer, and teach each other so everyone can be a repre-sentative to share the group’s answer to the whole class.
When expecting students to perform more than one level of individual ac-countability, such as when they learn through Numbered Heads Together and Three Step Interview, teachers need to encourage students to do the following. First, use the given think time to prepare for their performance of initial indi-vidual accountability. Kagan and Kagan (2009) advocate that think time im-proves the quality of student responses. In Astuti’s (2016) study, one of the teacher participants used Numbered Heads Together in a slightly different way. This teacher provided her students think time for all of the questions she asked/posed; her students processed all of the questions in the beginning. This modification worked fine for her students’ EFL learning because what mattered was that students had think time to prepare for their performances of individual accountability. Students’ performance of quality individual accountability facil-itates their responsibility as individual learners.
Second, use the initial individual accountability performance as a verbal practice for the higher level of individual accountability. Existing studies sug-gest that the more EFL learners practice using the target language, the closer they are to the attainment of communicative competence. The first author’s study revealed this as well. Specifically, it was found that because of the use of English in students’ performances of individual accountability and during peer interaction—the availability of opportunities to use the target language—the EFL learners gained confidence to speak in English (Astuti, 2016).
Third, listen and pay attention to peers’ initial individual accountability performance. For example, teachers can highlight students’ opportunity to learn from their peers’ English pronunciation when those peers are performing their individual accountability to demonstrate students’ responsibility for their own learning (e.g., recognizing their peers’ mispronunciation or pronunciation of newly-learned words) and their peers’ learning (e.g., enabling them to later provide feedback for the performers). As “activity is precursor to learning” (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999, pp. 62-64), through the activities of listen-ing and paylisten-ing attention to their peers’ performances of individual accountabil-ity, EFL learners consciously learned the target language (Astuti, 2016). This, to some degree, also reflects Holliday’s (1994) notion of students learning about how the target language works in discourse as a characteristic of CLT.
make each member a stronger individual and that students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals” (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p. 71). From an Interaction Hypothesis lens, it appears that while EFL learners might realize that they are learning to negotiate meaning (recall the re-quired activity of peer interaction), they might not be aware that they are “pick-ing up” (Krashen, 2003, p. 1)—acquir“pick-ing—English vocabulary dur“pick-ing interac-tions with their peers (Astuti, 2016). As delineated by Larsen-Freeman (1986), these processes are favored by CLT.
After students get the idea of how CL works, especially the activities in-volved in individual accountability, teachers can then focus their attention on which CL techniques are best for helping their EFL learners learn and meet the lesson objectives. Through its illustration of the use of different CL techniques for teaching EFL, the next section will demonstrate how teachers can connect the how of CL and the what or the teaching contents (i.e., the four language skills and language components).
CONNECTING THE HOW TO ACCOMMODATE THE WHAT
As discussed earlier in this article, one of the challenges faced by Indone-sian EFL teachers in putting CLT into practice is their mastery of CLT meth-ods. We present the following illustrations to show teachers how knowing the activities of individual accountability in various CL techniques can help them to connect the how and the what, which can create CLT-oriented EFL instruc-tion.
After the class and the teams or groups reach a certain level of comfort with each other through the aforementioned techniques, EFL teachers can then employ CL techniques for communication functions (recall Larsen-Freeman’s (1986, 2012) notions of CLT). CL techniques under this category seem to be ones that need to be highlighted more in EFL classrooms for the expected out-come of learners’ improved communicative competence to be fully realized. The four CL techniques discussed in the previous section (Fan-N-Pick, RoundRobin, Numbered Heads Together, and Three Step Interview) can be used to promote communication skills (Kagan & Kagan, 2009). Astuti’s (2016) teacher participant in the middle school classroom employed RoundRobin and Numbered Heads Together for teaching speaking, while the teacher participant in the high school classroom used Numbered Heads Together for teaching lis-tening. In other words, the four techniques can be used in teaching all four lan-guage skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
We now move to providing illustrations of how the four CL techniques are used in EFL classrooms to teach each of the four language skills. As in our il-lustrations of training students on how CL works, in this section we unpack the activities of individual accountability in each CL technique. More specifically, we highlight how individual accountability is enacted in these CL techniques and how it benefits EFL learners. We do so to showcase how the individual ac-countability principle of CL helps enhance EFL learning and make EFL in-struction more CLT-oriented. We believe that such effort, not made elsewhere in the CL literature, will build a better understanding of the importance of indi-vidual accountability in CL implementation to develop EFL learners’ commu-nicative competence.
Fan-N-Pick for Teaching Reading
Hence, besides developing their reading skills (e.g., identifying main ideas, skimming, and scanning), students also practice their writing skills (e.g., writ-ing the 5WH questions with correct spellwrit-ing and/or sentence structure) and speaking skills (i.e., communicating/presenting their understanding of the text). In these processes, we believe that students make sense of the language being learned. For example, they realize that writing 5WH questions in English can-not be done by simply translating the questions—word-by-word—from Indo-nesian to English because they have to follow, among others, English syntax.
Numbered Heads Together for Teaching Listening and Speaking
After students have learned a text genre—announcements, as an exam-ple— they listen to a sample spoken announcement and make some notes about it. Next, the teacher poses comprehension questions, including questions on how certain words are pronounced and expressions used by the speaker— learning how the language works in discourse. With their group members, stu-dents then answer the questions through Numbered Heads Together. This means that listening activities take place at least twice: when students are lis-tening to the spoken announcement and when they are lislis-tening to the ques-tions from their teacher. Additionally, because of the nature of individual ac-countability in Numbered Heads Together, speaking activities also take place: 1) when students are performing their individual accountability in their home group (i.e., sharing their own answer with their group members), 2) when they are interacting with each other to reach a consensus, and 3) when they are per-forming their individual accountability to the whole class (i.e., sharing their group’s answer with the whole class). Astuti and Lammers (2017) discuss in greater detail how these required activities of individual accountability in CL provide EFL learners more opportunities to use English.
missed one of the steps in the procedure of Numbered Heads Together, i.e., in-dividual accountability in home groups, it appears that their students communi-cated with the text—they learned how the target language works in discourse (fable and news). In other words, their learning activities seem to be within CLT framework.
RoundRobin for Teaching Writing
When using RoundRobin to teach writing, students take turns stating re-sponses or solutions (step #3) in written mode, going around the table to allow each student to contribute, which refers to another CL technique called RoundTable (Kagan & Kagan, 2009). RoundTable can be used for any stage of teaching writing. When used at the brainstorming stage, the teacher can, for ex-ample, ask questions around the day’s topic, such as: “What do you know about…?” After thinking time, students take turns writing their answer on a piece of paper—performing individual accountability in groups. The teacher may ask them not to repeat their peers’ answers. When used at the writing stage, teachers can, for example, ask students to write a problem or question they have in their writing process, including questions on vocabulary, tenses, or sentence structure (making meaning of the language being learned). Next, the teacher collects the papers containing the problems. The class can then use the-se problems for individual students’ writing conference, next meeting’s review, or for a whole-class discussion.
When RoundTable is used at the feedback providing stage, teachers can ask students to take turns writing their feedback on their group members’ work—another form of individual accountability in groups. The focus of the feedback can be predetermined, depending on the needs of the class and/or the teaching content. When each group member finishes writing their feedback or comments, speaking activities may follow for the students to share what they learn from their peers’ feedback on their writing.
Three Step Interview for Teaching Speaking and Listening
Using Three Step Interview for teaching speaking (e.g., teaching expres-sions for stating an opinion) might look like the following. After introducing the many ways of stating one’s opinion, the teacher uses this CL technique for students to practice using the expressions. A list of topics is written on the board (e.g., pollution, deforestation, global warming). After all students in each group finish interviewing their peers’ about their opinion on one topic— individual accountability in pairs (e.g. Question: “What do you think about…?” Answer: “In my opinion…”) and reports what they learned in the interview (i.e., performing individual accountability in home groups, for example: “Ac-cording to Monica …”), they move on to the next topic. The teacher moves around the room and encourages students to use different expressions for dif-ferent topics (thus promoting student learning about how the language works in discourse) and to help each other to better state their opinions. In the teaching of speaking skills, listening activities are indeed involved. Through Three Step Interview, students listen to their peers’ verbal production as they interview each other and as they listen to their peers’ reports. Hence, they get exposed to different varieties of the target expressions (communicative functions).
Embedding the Teaching of Language Components
Literature suggests the use of inductive methods for teaching language components (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and tenses), which is in line with CLT because it promotes students’ meaning making of the target lan-guage (Richards, 2002). Specifically, through examples and activities, learners identify the rules or patterns of the target language, and this demonstrates how they learn about how the target language works in discourse; a classroom activ-ity that reflects the CLT approach (Holliday, 1994). In the use of the four CL techniques illustrated above, the teaching of language components can also be integrated. For example, in the use of 5WH questions and Fan-N-Pick for teaching reading, teachers can ask students to include questions on vocabulary used in the text, which is then discussed in groups or with the whole class. For example, teachers encourage students to ask questions such as: “What is the synonym of the word…used by the author in paragraph…line…?” or “What is the meaning of the word…in paragraph…line…?”
does the announcer pronounce this word (showing or pointing to a word used in the announcement)?” In the use of RoundTable for teaching writing, teachers can ask students to check their peers’ spelling and provide feedback when nec-essary before writing their comments on the area of writing determined by their teacher. Finally, when using the Three Step Interview for teaching speaking, especially during peer interaction, teachers can ask students to help each other in putting together their sentences and following correct grammar and tenses.
The above illustrations of CL techniques and how individual accountabil-ity is enacted in EFL instruction suggests that any CL technique be used for teaching any EFL content, i.e., for teaching any language skill or component. For example, in the first author’s study, one EFL teacher participant used Numbered Heads Together for teaching speaking, specifically for her students to recall the details of the narrative text they read. The other EFL teacher par-ticipant used the same CL technique for teaching listening. She used Numbered Heads Together for her students to recall and write down news-related words— a vocabulary building activity.
Notwithstanding the compatibility of any CL technique for teaching any language skill or component, the wider the repertoire of CL techniques a teach-er has (including having an undteach-erstanding of individual accountability activi-ties in each technique), the better he or she can select what best suits their les-son objectives and their students’ needs. For example, although Numbered Heads Together can be used for teaching any language skill and component, teachers whose students are new to CL need to consider choosing a CL tech-nique that has one level of individual accountability and Numbered Heads To-gether is not one. RoundRobin is another example. Although this technique, as Numbered Heads Together and other CL techniques, can be used for teaching any language skill and component, it best fits speaking lessons because the procedure requires students to take turns to speak in their group and to the whole class.
3) techniques for enhancing intellectual accomplishment, intrinsic motivation and equal-status interaction (see Cohen & Lotan, 1997; Sharan & Sharan, 1992).
Referring to Sharan’s (2002) taxonomy, we see that the CL techniques il-lustrated and described in this article (developed by Kagan & Kagan) fall under the category of the Structural Approach (recall the definition of the word struc-ture), which can enhance learners’ social skills and interpersonal communica-tions. These purposes, as we have indicated earlier in this section, are in line with the tenets of CLT (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, 2012). EFL teachers may then include CL techniques under the Structural Approach in their working reper-toire and refer to Sharan’s taxonomy when they seek to achieve particular pur-poses.
POTENTIAL BARRIERS
The connection between the how and the what discussed in the previous section suggests that teachers need to master the procedure of the selected CL techniques and follow them to better facilitate their students’ learning of the target language skill and/or language components and to eventually achieve the lesson objectives. The first author’s study found that teachers’ understanding of CL affects the enactment of individual accountability in CL (Astuti, 2016). Specifically, in some of the use of CL techniques in the studied EFL class-rooms, individual accountability in home groups and peer interaction were missed. One of the identified consequences was that the individual EFL learn-ers did not present or report what was assigned to them. This might have ham-pered the attainment of the lesson objectives and the goal of the EFL instruc-tion because the learners missed the opportunity to use the target language, es-pecially to talk about what they learned. In what follows, we describe such a situation using one of the above illustrations, i.e., the use of Numbered Heads Together for teaching listening.
accountabil-ity in home groups, they also missed the opportunaccountabil-ity to interact with their peers, i.e., having conversations with them to reach a consensus (group’s an-swer) and teaching each other so that everyone could represent their group (As-tuti, 2016). As a consequence, they performed their individual accountability to the whole class—by answering the given questions— without preparation or any help from their peers. This is not the kind of learning that CL emphasizes because students do not cooperate with their peers to make them stronger indi-vidual learners.
To avoid the aforementioned barriers, we recommend that teachers, espe-cially those new to CL, first use CL techniques developed by CL experts exact-ly as described (Astuti & Lammers, 2017). Doing so will help them to recog-nize activities involved in individual accountability in CL and understand how these activities can contribute to their students’ learning, including maximizing their participation and contribution. We also suggest that teachers new to CL look for relevant literature on the variety of CL techniques, their functions, procedures, as well as their activities of individual accountability so that these teachers will be able to make informed decisions when selecting ones that suit their lesson objectives and/or their class/students’ needs. This supports Sharan (2002)’s recommendations for teachers that they need to choose CL techniques that are “most suited to the purpose they wish to achieve” (p. 115). Unfortu-nately, little research has been done to map CL techniques, i.e., studies that re-veal the connection of the how and the what, which is actually needed by new CL practitioners. Through this article, we attempt to address this gap in the lit-erature.
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Learners being responsible for their own and their peers’ learning is the underlying idea of individual accountability in CL. Learners actualize this re-sponsibility by doing performance or presentation of their learning in front of their peers. This is basically the essence of CL. We believe that this article has illustrated how CL works, with special focus on individual accountability, and how this key CL principle appears to facilitate EFL learning. More specifically, we have demonstrated how the enactment of this CL principle can help teach-ers to facilitate the learning of the four language skills and components and to promote the learning of how the target language works in discourse.
Starting from an understanding that CLT emphasizes the use of target lan-guage and interaction among peers, we argue that individual accountability in CL (i.e., performance or presentation of what is being learned with their peers) promotes the use of English. The more learners do performances or presenta-tions and interact with their peers to prepare for these performances, the more they use the target language (Astuti & Lammers, 2017). The more they use the target language, the closer they are to achieving their learning objectives, and, in turn, the goal of learning the language, i.e., learners’ developed communica-tive competence (Richards, 2002).
The enactment of individual accountability in CL illustrated in this article also demonstrates that it can help teachers train their students on how CL works. When students know the required activities of individual accountability in CL and perform them, not only will they better learn through CL, but they will also benefit from it. Additionally, we believe that our illustrations have shown that knowing the activities involved in individual accountability in vari-ous CL techniques helps them make informed decisions on which techniques can best meet their students’ learning objectives.
communica-tion and interaccommunica-tion in and about the target language, CL can help teachers make their EFL instruction more CLT-oriented.
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